NATO concerned over possibility of missing missiles in Libya

PanARMENIAN.Net - NATO said it is concerned about the possibility that large numbers of portable surface-to-air missiles, previously in the armament of Moammar Gadhafi’s army, are missing in Libya.

“It is a matter of concern if stockpiles of weapons are not properly controlled and monitored,” Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

He was responding to a report that thousands of SAM-7 shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles allegedly went missing after the defeat of loyalist forces by former Libyan rebels, who were supported by NATO air strikes.

At weekend, the German news magazine Der Spiegel published a report saying that during a confidential briefing last Monday for German lawmakers, NATO’s top military officer, Adm. Giampaolo Di Paola, said the military alliance had lost track of at least 10,000 surface-to-air missiles from Libyan military depots.

The report cited Di Paola as saying he fears the missiles could turn up anywhere - “in Kenya or in Kunduz” - and that they could potentially pose a “serious danger to civil aviation.”

A spokesman for Di Paola in Brussels said he could not confirm the report, the Associated Press reported.